Evidence of Black Africans in the Bible | Grace Communion International Evidence of Black Africans in the Bible 1998, 2007 In 1992, I took a class at Emory University in Atlanta called Introduction to the Old Testament. As I read the various required textbooks for the course, I saw something I had not noticed before. Many Old Testament scholars, particularly European scholars of the 18th, 19th and early 20th century, had written their books and commentaries on the Old Testament from the perspective that there were no people of color mentioned in the Scriptures. Different nationalities depicted in tomb of Ramses III: Libyan, Nubian, Syrian, Bedouin, Hittite Puzzled, I began to look into the topic more deeply. I studied intensively for about a year, attending lectures and interviewing scholars. I began to realize that this was a particularly difficult and controversial subject, and it has caused much hurt. Thankfully, times have changed, but some of the wounds remain. So let’s look at it, and put to rest once and for all this biased and unfair distortion of the Bible.

Video Interview: The Office of Reconciliation & Mediation Let me apologize in advance for some of the terms that I will need to use as we discuss this topic. They are not the terms we would prefer today, but they are terms that historians, ethnologists and Bible commentators of past centuries, and even the 20th century, have employed to explain their ideas about the origin of blacks. These ideas, steeped in racial prejudice, were alleged to provide a biblical justification for black slavery and the subjugation of black peoples. When I first read about these concepts, they brought tears to my eyes. As a white person in a predominantly white country, I also began to gain a better understanding of and a greater appreciation for the black experience in the United States. Is the Bible a book by a white God for white people? Of course not. God is spirit and does not have "color" in our human and earthly sense. There is nothing in the Scriptures to indicate that people are excluded from God’s saving grace on the basis of ethnic origin or skin color. God is "not wanting anyone to perish" (2 Peter 3:9). Jesus is the Savior of all peoples.

Nevertheless, it is a fact that the majority of European artists and Bible commentators painted and described all biblical characters, including God, as white. This had the effect of excluding blacks from being a part of Scripture and has led some people of color to question the Bible’s relevance to them. Exclusion was only one side of the problem. Where the presence of blacks in the Bible was admitted, primarily among uneducated whites, outrageous myths and fables abounded. This was especially true among white Christians living in the southeastern United States prior to the Civil War. These denigrating tales were believed to support the racist (and unbiblical) notion that the Bible supported a white subjugation of black people. What do we mean by "black"? There are several difficulties surrounding any discussion of this sensitive topic. Some are obvious; others are less so. Not least is the question, what do we mean by "black" people? In America today, we mean African-Americans — those with African ancestry and dark skin color. But is that how the people who lived when the books of the Bible were written would have thought? There are differences between ancient and modern concepts of what "black" means when it is applied to people.

For example, in the table of nations in Genesis 10, the word used to describe the people descended from Ham in the ancient Hebrew, Akkadian and Sumerian languages is related to the color black. But what does this mean? Our traditional understanding of the Old Testament is influenced by the ancient rabbinic method of interpretation known as Midrash. These interpretations sometimes take precedence over the literal meaning of the text being interpreted. They also belong to another time with other socio-economic conditions and concerns. When ancient rabbinic literature mentions black people, does it mean ethnically "Negro" or just people of generally darker skin? Let me give you a modern example. In a congregation I once pastored were two families with the surnames Black and White. The Whites were black and the Blacks were white. Mr. Black, who was white, used to talk about his lovely white grandchildren who were Blacks. And Mr. White talked about his lovely black grandchildren who were Whites. Imagine what someone a thousand years from now would think if they read that. Just because some people are called by a term meaning "black" does not necessarily prove they were what we now call black.

Of course, it does not mean that they were not "people of color" either. In ancient times, just as folks did in the old frontier societies of our country, people often were given names that reflected their personality, where they were from or their appearance. But names like "Slim," "Tex," "Kid," "Smitty" or "Buffalo" tell you nothing of a person’s ancestry. Some ancient writers say that the Egyptians and Ethiopians were black. But what do they mean? How "black" were they? Were they merely darker than those doing the writing? The wall paintings and hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians and Ethiopians picture some people as black in color. But this was a highly stylized art form, and may have nothing to do with their actual skin color. Some black people are much fairer in skin color than some we classify as "Caucasians." There are also social and legal definitions, based on the percentage of African or "Negro" blood people have in their ancestry. It was not so long ago that certain states had laws that stated that someone was a "Negro" if the person had even a single black ancestor. Physical appearance did not matter.

These are some of the difficulties of trying to determine if people in the Bible are what today we consider black. It is therefore irresponsible to draw superficial conclusions either for or against a black presence in the Scriptures. But this did not stop scholars and theologians (who surely should have known better) from suggesting that all people in the Bible were white, and that the Bible record excludes the Asian and "Negro" races, a conclusion that is not true. But suppose it were true? What difference would that make? The Bible account focuses on what we now call the Middle East, and in particular the rags-to-riches-to-ruin story of ancient Israel. It is specific to geography and to a historical period. Other people are mentioned as they pertain to the unfolding of that story. So Eskimos (or Inuit) are not included, nor are Koreans. Yet no one seriously believes that they are excluded from the human race. But when it comes to the alleged absence of black people, we encounter a web of cruel deceit that makes a mockery of the true biblical record. Only when you understand this can you begin to get a glimmer of what it has been like to be black in America.

Several views Among those who have accepted the presence of black people in the Bible, several different views as to the origin of blacks were postulated. Let’s look at some of these. The pre-Adamite view argues that blacks, particularly so-called "Negroes," are not descended from Adam. This view appears to have its origin in the works of such authors as Paracelsus in 1520, Bruno in 1591, Vanini in 1619 and one of the most prolific writers, Peyrère, in 1655. It reached a high level of development with the 19th-century scholar Alexander Winchell in his book, Preadamites; or a Demonstration of the Existence of Men Before Adam, published in 1880. These writers (all of them white), argued that blacks belong to a race created before Adam and from among whom the biblical villain Cain found his wife. Cain, by marrying one of these pre-Adamic peoples, the reasoning goes, became the progenitor of all black people.

Therefore, it was rationalized, black people, especially "Negroes," are not actually human, because they did not descend from Adam but from some pre-Adamic creation, having entered the human race only by intermarriage, and that with a notorious sinner. As non-humans, therefore, they did not have souls, but were merely beasts like any other beast of the field. And since the Bible says God gave humans dominion over the beasts, it was concluded that these soulless creatures exist to do work for the humans. This preposterous theological premise was preached in churches across the United States, particularly in the Southeast, to reassure people that slavery was not only acceptable, but the very will of God, rooted firmly in a "proper" understanding of the Bible. The Cainite view argues that Cain was born white, but after his unacceptable sacrifice and the murder of his brother, Abel, he was turned black as punishment and became the progenitor of all black people.

According to some of the rabbinic Midrashim (in both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud), because Cain offered an unacceptable sacrifice, the smoke from this unacceptable sacrifice blew back on him, turned him black and caused all of his children to be born black. In another Talmudic story, a rabbi says that God beat Cain with hail until he turned black. Stories vary, but it became a common Euro-American belief that God cursed and marked Cain by turning him black.1 The Noahite (or old Hamite) view can be traced to writings suggested in the Talmud and later adopted by Jewish and Christian interpreters (especially among white southerners in the pre-Civil War United States). In this view, Ham violated God’s supposed prohibition against mating on the ark. Because he could not resist, he was turned black. Yet another teaching was that Ham and/or Canaan were turned black as a result of Noah’s curse in Genesis 9:24-27. In this view, because God cursed Canaan, that curse was to go on all of Canaan’s descendants and the curse was, first, that they would all be turned black, and second, that they would be servants to white people.

Again, we see here a blatant attempt to interpret the Bible in a way that justifies the institution of black slavery. The New Hamite view is a 19th-century view that holds that Hamites were all white rather than black with the possible exception of Cush. (Cush is a Hebrew term that means "black one.") Scholars, particularly in 19th century Germany, said that even if Cush were black in color, he must be regarded as a Caucasoid black. Why? Because, in their view, Negroes were not within the purview of the writers of the Bible. Even some modern biblical scholars hold this view. For example, Martin Noth, considered to be one of the most respected Old Testament scholars of all time, states on page 263 of his book The Old Testament World (Fortress, 1966) that the biblical writers knew nothing of any Negro people. Understandably, there has been a reaction among black theologians and black people to these ideas. Some have tended toward the opposite extreme, arguing that everyone in the Bible was black. Dr. Charles B.

Copher, professor of African American Studies at Interdenominational Theological School in Atlanta, says this view is patently outlandish. He believes that this notion is an overreaction that can lead to another kind of extremism. The Adamite view is the orthodox Jewish, Christian and Islamic view. It is based (for Christians) on Acts 17:26, which states that God made all people from one original bloodline, or one source. This, we emphasize, is the only view that is consistent with the true message of Scripture. Nevertheless, these other hideously distorted ideas have been promulgated, and some still have a degree of influence even today. So what? So, where does that leave us? Feeling slightly nauseated, I hope, over the amazing ability we have to delude ourselves and bend the word of God in any direction that suits our purposes. The overall and surely indisputable message is that God has created us all in his image and has included all members of the human race in the saving work of his Son. Nowhere does the Bible give any indications that black people, or any people, whether "of color" or not, are outside the embrace of his love.

But the fact remains that people have believed and taught this error, and sadly, it has been a teaching that still affects the way many of us think about each other, and perhaps even ourselves. The Bible does not focus on skin color as any form of criterion. All have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God, and all are recipients of his grace through Jesus Christ. But what about the question of whether black people are mentioned in the Bible? Admittedly it is difficult to build a definitive case, based on textual evidence, to prove beyond all doubt that black people are mentioned in its pages. But why should we have to? Let’s turn the question around. There is no evidence whatsoever that black people — or any people for that matter — are excluded from the purview of the writers of the Bible. Let us put the burden of proof on those who would teach otherwise. Evidence in the Bible The stories of the Bible took place in and around what we now call the Middle East, and people moved on and off its stage based on their relationship with the nations of ancient Israel and Judah. Consequently the vast majority of the world’s ethnic and racial groups are not specifically identified. But some of those who are identified were black.

From the tomb of Seti I: Syrian, Nubian, Libyan, Egyptian There is a strong tradition that some of the descendants of Noah through his son Ham were black. Ham had a son named Cush, which means "black" in Hebrew. Cush is the most common term designating color in reference to persons, people or lands used in the Bible. It’s used 58 times in the King James Version. The Greek and Latin word is Ethiopia. In classical literature, Greek and Roman authors describe Ethiopians as black. Archaeology has found these people to be black. In the book of Jeremiah, the question is asked, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" Genesis 10:6-20 describes the descendants of Ham as being located in North Africa, Central Africa and in parts of southern Asia. Psalm 105:23 mentions the "land of Ham" in Egypt, and Psalm 78:51 connects the "tents of Ham" with Egypt. Other Old Testament evidence In Genesis 10, Nimrod, son of Cush (whose name means "black"), founded a civilization in Mesopotamia.

In Genesis 11, Abraham was from Ur of the Chaldees, a land whose earliest inhabitants included blacks. The people of the region where Abraham came from can be proven historically and archaeologically to have been intermixed racially. So it is possible that Abraham and those who traveled with him could have been racially mixed. Genesis 14 tells how Abraham’s experiences in Canaan and Egypt brought him and his family into areas inhabited by peoples who were very likely black. Both archaeological evidence and the account in 1 Chronicles 4 tell us that the land of Canaan was inhabited by the descendants of Ham. Further black presence can be found in the accounts of Hagar the Egyptian, Ishmael and his Egyptian wife, and Ishmael’s sons, especially Kedar. The Kedarites are mentioned many times in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Nehemiah, and the word kedar means "blackness." Still further evidence of black presence in the patriarchal period appears with Joseph’s experiences in Egypt. Joseph married an Egyptian woman, Asenath, who was descended from Mizraim, which made her Hamitic. Thus there is a strong possibility that Asenath was black. She was the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh.

The New Testament The New Testament also contains ample evidence of a black presence. Acts 8 tells the story of the Ethiopian eunuch, one of the first Gentiles to be baptized. He came from a black region, so he may have been black. In Acts 13 we read of Simeon, called Niger, the Latin term for black. There is also Lucias from Cyrene, a geographical location of black people. Do these references give us absolute proof? No. But the weight of evidence indicates that blacks were not excluded from "Bible action." Modern scholarly opinion refutes the theologians who argued against a black presence in the Bible. But sadly, the past Euro-centrist interpretation of the Bible, which did recognize a black presence in the Bible, was deliberately used by some in the past to justify the subjugation and enslavement of peoples of color. I believe it can be argued that there is a black presence in the Old and New Testaments. But either way, what is certain is that the Bible teaches that God has made all people of one ancestry. All humans — male, female, black, white, red, yellow and brown, are God’s children.

They are all made in the image of God for salvation through Jesus Christ. This article was written by Dr. Dan Rogers. Of all the articles on this website, this one is the second-most popular, in the number of times it is recommended to a friend. Perhaps you know of someone who'd like to hear about it. If so, go to the bottom of the page and click on "Email this page." Fill out the form, and share the good news! There's also a way to share the page on Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, and other websites. Other popular articles The New Testament makes it clear that no one is excluded from God’s love and purpose. Paul tells us that there is "neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ" (Galatians 3:26-29). God’s Word concerns, involves and speaks to all people inclusively. We could sum it up in the words of the popular song: Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight Jesus loves the little children of the world. Author’s note: This article is based on a paper I wrote while studying at Emory University in Atlanta.

That paper was the product of much research, in the process of which I amassed a large bibliography. There is not space to include it here. But readers who would like further details may access the complete bibliography here. 1 Some teach the opposite to be true, saying that God turned Cain white to make him easily recognizable (marked) in a Middle Eastern context. Some also teach that leprosy (in which the skin turned white) was the curse of God, thus white people are the real cursed ones. This view of Scripture, although equally distorted, nevertheless has had some influence in a disenfranchised black community. Adam named the animals, every living creature, all cattle, the fowl, and the beast of the field, the eagle, lion, cormorant, the night hawk Home Page Adam named the Eagle and the Lion? Genesis 2:19-20 "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field;" ... (KJV) This all happens before the creation of Eve in Genesis 2:22 and before the "fall" as described in Genesis 3:6 ! Looking in Strong's Hebrew Dictionary at a few Biblical Hebrew names for common animals we find; #5404 "to lacerate ... large bird of prey" Thus we see that the names derive from observable physical characteristics of the animals or their observable behaviors. The cormorant is named due to its diving into the water in pursuit of its prey. And that the names of the lion, night hawk (perhaps an owl) and eagle relate to their violent preying nature ! H. W. F. Gesenius in his Lexicon provides a more graphic description for the eagle; "to tear in pieces with the teeth, to rend (as a bird of prey)".

Conclusion: Either the Biblical Hebrew names for the lion, cormorant, night hawk and eagle are not the same as those that Adam gave; or Adam observed violent animal behavior before the creation of Eve and the "fall", contrary to the teaching of some scholars that there was no death and violence before the "fall" ! Ref: "A concise Dictionary of the words in the Hebrew Bible; with their renderings in the Authorized English Version by James Strong, S.T.D., L.L.D. (copyright, 1890, by James Strong, Madison N.J.) Eagle, common name for a number of diurnal birds of prey, some of which are the largest members of their family which also includes kites, hawks, buzzards, and certain vultures. The name eagle is somewhat loosely applied, as several of the groups are not particularly closely related to one another, and some birds called hawks are larger than some called eagles. Microsoft� Encarta� Encyclopedia 2000. � 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Lion, one of the largest members of the cat family.

The lion's size and strength have captured human imagination since ancient times, giving these animals the nickname king of beasts. Lions are also known for their mighty roar, a fearsome sound that can be heard by humans more than 8 km (5 mi) away. Lions once ranged over vast areas on many continents. Fossil evidence shows that until about 10,000 years ago, lions lived throughout Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and into Asia as far as southern India and the island of Sri Lanka. They also lived in North America and northern South America. "Lion," Microsoft� Encarta� Encyclopedia 2000. � 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Naming the animals: all in a days work for Adam - creation.com View Item Editor’s note: As Creation magazine has been continuously published since 1978, we are publishing some of the articles from the archives for historical interest, such as this. For teaching and sharing purposes, readers are advised to supplement these historic articles with more up-to-date ones suggested in the Related Articles below. Naming the animals: all in a day’s work for Adam Could Adam have named all the animals in one day?

by Russell M. Grigg Photo stock.xchng Genesis 1:24–27 states that God made the land animals, as well as the first man and woman, on Day Six of Creation Week. Genesis 2:18–23 tells us that Adam named the animals before Eve was created. So how could Adam have named all the animals in one day? The time factor Day Six of Creation Week began at evening ( Genesis 1:31 ), and so consisted of about 12 hours of darkness followed by about 12 hours of daylight. There is no reason why God could not have made the land animals, and Adam too, during the darkness period of Day Six, so that at first light there they all were! If, however, God used the daylight period, there is no reason to suppose that His creative acts in making the animals and Adam took any longer than the instant for Him to command these events to happen. 1 So either way it need not have taken any time at all beyond first light on Day Six for all the land animals and Adam to have come into existence. Adam therefore had most of the daylight hours of Day Six in which to complete his task.

Note that this task did not include his searching out the animal, because Genesis 2:19 tells us that God ‘brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them’. Presumably this was in some sort of reasonably orderly procession. Naming the animals The following points need to be noted: 1. Genesis chapter 1 says that the animals were created according to their kinds, rather than according to their species—the phrase ‘after his/their kind’ occurs 10 times in this chapter (referring to both plants and animals). Exactly what the term ‘kind’ (Hebrew min) corresponds to in terms of the modern Linnaean classification system is not clear, but it appears that sometimes the min corresponds to today’s species, sometimes to the genus, and sometimes to the family. It indicates the limitations of variation. What is clear is that numerically there must have been fewer kinds in Adam’s day than the number of species we count today. [Ed. note: for more information, see Ligers and wholphins? What next?

] For example, it is more than likely that there would have been no domestic dogs, coyotes, and wolves as such, but rather one ancestral kind containing the genetic information for all of these to appear under natural selection pressures. Photo stock.xchng This is not evolution, because no new information is added. In the same way, the mongrel dog population of a few hundred years back was able to give rise (under human selection) to the various modern breeds of dog—because the information was already there in that population, much more than in today’s specialized, genetically depleted breeds. That’s why you can’t start with a chihuahua population, and expect that breeding/selection will eventually produce Great Danes. 2. Today we divide the animals into those we call tame (mostly herbivores), and those we call wild (both herbivores and carnivores), but this distinction did not apply before Adam sinned.

Genesis 1:30 says, ‘And to every beast … I have given every green herb for food’, and Genesis 1:31 , ‘And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.’ From these we conclude that animals did not kill each other for food pre-Fall, and they had no reason to fear man. This means that we can regard them all as being tame at the time Adam named them. It also means that they would not have eaten each other, while taking part in any naming procession! The animals which Adam named are specifically described in Genesis 2:20 . They were the ‘cattle’, ‘the fowl of the air’ (birds), and ‘every beast of the field’. This classification has no correlation with today’s arbitrary system of man-made taxonomy (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, insects), but is a more natural system based on the relation of the animals to man’s interests. If we compare this naming list with the creation list in Genesis 1:20–25 —birds and sea creatures (created on Day Five), beasts of the earth, cattle, creeping things—we see there are several very significant differences.

2 Adam was not required to name any of the sea creatures, or any of the creeping things. And as the beasts of the field were not specifically mentioned in the creation list, we can regard them as being a subdivision of the beasts of the earth. That is, Adam was required to name only some of the total land animal population of his own day. There is no suggestion that the naming was meant to be comprehensive. From this it follows that Adam’s task was not to provide a scientific taxonomy, but a set of general names of a selection of the animals, for the benefit of average human beings who would come after him. So what animals were named? 1. The cattle (Hebrew: behemah) The Hebrew term used here usually refers to animals which lend themselves to domestication—what we might call ‘domestic fauna’. Though no creatures were ‘wild’ in the modern sense, they would not all have been equally suitable for use by man. ... most of the different breeds of what we call cattle today can be traced back to a single basic type.

It is interesting to note that most of the different breeds of what we call cattle today can be traced back to a single basic type, namely the aurochs, which itself is probably descended from the same created kind as the buffalo and bison group. 3 Likewise, all the varieties of dog we have today have been bred from one basic dog/wolf type. Similar considerations may well apply to many other species of animals we use today, such as the horse. All of this gives a total of a few dozen kinds at the most of behemah for Adam to name. 2. The fowl of the air The Bible mentions some 50 different birds, whereas modern ornithologists divide the bird class into about 8,600 species. Of these, some 5,100 are in the order Passeriformes (perching birds), divided into suborders, families, and subfamilies; and there are about 3,500 species allotted to all other orders of birds in their families. Thus there are 285 species in the pigeon family, 127 species in the cuckoo family, 18 species in the penguin family, and so on.

4 So how many birds did Adam have to name? It is instructive to consider what Encyclopaedia Britannica says about parrots. ‘The avian order Psittaciformes [parrots, lories, cockatoos] contains more than 300 species of generally brightly colored, noisy, tropical birds, to which the general name parrot may be applied.’ 5 We do not know whether all such ‘parrots’ today are the descendants of one created kind, or whether the parrots of today descended from a handful of original kinds, which had (created) similarities to each other such that today we group them all under ‘parrot’. freeimages.com If they were from one created kind, then instead of the 300 we have today, there would have been only one for Adam to name. Even if there were, say, three parrot kinds originally, it would have been fully legitimate (just as today) for these all to have been given the general term ‘parrot’. Therefore, only one representative from the three kinds would have been needed in the naming procession for the name ‘parrot’ (in whatever tongue Adam spoke) to have been given.

By the same reasoning, Adam probably named one ‘pigeon’, one ‘cuckoo’, one ‘penguin’, and so on. Colliers Encyclopedia lists a total of 163 families of all living, fossil, and extinct birds. 6 This means that if Adam named only one representing each such modern group, to which the same ‘general name’ could be applied, then there could have been fewer than a couple of hundred birds involved. 3. The beast(s) of the field The Hebrew word sadeh, translated ‘field’ in several Bible versions, has the meaning of a flat open plain. The term ‘beast(s) of the field’ occurs several times in the Old Testament. These are all in a post-Fall situation, that is, after sin had entered the world. They included animals that move in when humans move out ( Exodus 23:29 ), ‘wild asses’ ( Psalm 104:11 ), ‘dragons and owls’ ( Isaiah 43:20 ), 7 animals that prey on sheep ( Ezekiel 34:8 ), and a range of carnivores ( Ezekiel 39:17 ).

As the condition of sin did not apply when Adam named the animals, the most we can take from these verses is an indication of the variety of animals involved. It is better to think of sadeh (‘field’) as referring to the habitat, although not perhaps to the extent of asking ‘which field’? or ‘was the field the Garden of Eden?’ Taking all these factors into account, particularly the matter of habitat, the beasts of the field named were probably those animals which live today in open country and venture close to human habitation. Not named were probably those animals which live exclusively in forest, jungles, mountains, wetlands, deserts, etc. ... the beasts of the field named were probably those animals which live today in open country and venture close to human habitation. On the basis of our earlier discussion concerning birds, it is clear that nowhere near the number of species extant today would have been involved. Adam presumably needed to name only one ‘snake’ (or at the most possible a few major anatomical differences, like ‘python’, ‘rattlesnake’, ‘cobra’). Likewise for many types of animals.

It is therefore completely inappropriate to talk of his having had to name the 6,000 species of reptiles or the 2,000 species of amphibians known today. 8 Quite apart from the fact that many, if not most, of these have been excluded on the basis of habitat anyway. Thus, even allowing for extinct types, it would seem more than generous to allow for counting of a thousand ‘beasts of the field’—in reality, the figure may well have been in the low hundreds. Was Adam equal to the task? We learn language by association, but Adam, from the moment he was created, had language. Therefore he (and then Eve) must have already had built in ‘programs’ in their memory banks, so that when God said, ‘Don’t …’ ( Genesis 2:17 ), they immediately knew exactly what this meant. It seems that they must also have known what it would mean to die, even though they had never seen anything dead.

It is therefore reasonable for us to conclude that, at the ‘naming parade’, Adam could speak a precise language, using one or two words in place of a long description, just as our one word ‘elephant’ refers to ‘a large, big-eared, trunk-nosed, tusked quadruped’. It also means that he did not need to ponder each decision. His naming of each different kind of animal could therefore have been both quick and appropriate, and also without confusion, for he would have had the capacity to recall the names he already had allocated with a pre-Fall memory that was crystal clear and voluminous. 9 So, even in the unlikely event that there were as many as a thousand animals paraded before Adam, how long would it have taken him to name them? There are 3,600 seconds in an hour, so Adam could have completed his task in under an hour. If he did it in a more leisurely and contemplative fashion, it would have taken a few hours at the most (excluding time out for ‘coffee breaks’!). Surely a pleasant day’s work, leaving plenty of time for God to create Eve from Adam’s side that same afternoon. Why?

Adam had been given dominion over the animals ( Genesis 1:28 ), and God now provided him with the opportunity to exercise this responsibility in a way which established his authority and supremacy—in ancient times, it was an act of authority to impose names (cf. Daniel 1:7 ) and an act of submission to receive them. ... the first man was not some stooped, dimwitted, grunting hominid. This exercise also shows that Adam was not an ape-man, and indeed it was intended by God to show that he had no ape-like siblings among which to find fellowship or a mate (cf. Genesis 2:20b : ‘for Adam there was not found an help meet [i.e. helper suitable] for him’). Contrary to the wishful thinking of evolutionists, the first man was not some stooped, dimwitted, grunting hominid, separated from his ape-like ancestors by a genetic mutation or two. The Bible portrays Adam as being essentially different from the animal world, because he had been created ‘in the image of God’ ( Genesis 1:27 ).

This term refers primarily to man’s God-consciousness—his capacity for worshipping and loving God, his ability to understand and choose between right and wrong, and his capacity for holiness. 10 A secondary meaning includes such things as man’s mental powers, reason, and capacity for articulate, grammatical, symbolic speech. In Adam, before sin, these capacities may have dwarfed anything we know today. God in His omniscience would have foreknown the rise of humanistic naturalism in the twentieth century. This episode, way back in the Garden of Eden, highlights for those who have an eye to see it, the false and unbiblical nature of the evolutionary theory of human origins! Related Articles Creation for kids-Adam and the animals -- Day 6 References and notes See Grigg, R., Creation—how did God do it? Creation 13(2):36–38, 1991. This shows that God’s creative ‘speaking’ in Genesis chapter 1 was equivalent to God’s ‘willing’ things to happen. Return to text. Some skeptics and liberals have put forward the mistaken criticism that the order in Gen 2:19–20 is chronological, i.e.

that Adam was created before the animals, contrary to the order given in Genesis 1:21–26. However, Genesis 2 is not a second and different creation account. This is shown by the omission of any mention of the formation of the sun, moon, stars, or sea. Rather, chapter 2 gives more details about certain aspects of the creation which particularly concerned Adam. It would be both legitimate and in keeping with the sense of the Hebrew to translate Genesis 2:19 thus: ‘Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air …’. In fact, more than one modern translation of the Bible translates this verse in this way. There is no contradiction. (See Genesis contradictions? for more details.) Return to text. Colliers Encyclopedia, p. 210, 1994. Return to text. Several modern translations of the Bible render ‘dragons’ (Hebrew tannin) as ‘jackals’. However, it is possible that ‘dragons’ (KJV) is a more correct term and refers, at least on occasion, to dinosaurs.

If this is so, the number of dinosaurs named by Adam would have been limited, as with the other animals, to the comparative few whose habitat was flat open plains. Return to text. Especially so, when it is realized that many snakes are classified today according to the presence, absence, or location of various internal parts. Return to text. The human mind is capable of prodigious feats of memory, as for example chess players who can play several tens of games of chess ‘blindfolded’ (i.e. without sight of the board and communicating the moves by a recognised chess notation). Georges Koltanowski was a great expert, and also tackled 56 consecutive opponents blindfolded and won 50 games with 6 drawn, in 9.75 hours, on 13 December 1960 (Guinness Book of Records, p. 245, 1972); or Hiroyuki Goto, who recited pi to 42,195 places in Tokyo on 18 February 1995 (New Guinness Book of Records, p. 309, 1996).

Adam’s mind at this stage was not affected by either genetic defects or sin. Return to text. The capacity for holiness, though flawed in the case of Adam and all of his descendants (us) because of sin, was perfectly shown in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Return to text. (Also available in Romanian .) Evolution is supported and endorsed by governments, the media, our major educational institutions and many big businesses. But look at this site and see how much can be achieved with a little effort from God's people in supporting such outreach. Support this site

Question: In the Bible, who named all living beasts?
Answer: ADAM